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Review
. 2023 Mar 4;13(1):44.
doi: 10.1186/s13578-023-00986-9.

Nanomedicine for autophagy modulation in cancer therapy: a clinical perspective

Tania B López-Méndez #  1   2 , Miguel Sánchez-Álvarez #  3   4 , Flavia Trionfetti  5   6 , José L Pedraz  1   2 , Marco Tripodi  5   6 , Marco Cordani #  7   8 , Raffaele Strippoli #  9   10 , Juan González-Valdivieso #  11
Affiliations
Review

Nanomedicine for autophagy modulation in cancer therapy: a clinical perspective

Tania B López-Méndez et al. Cell Biosci. .

Erratum in

Abstract

In recent years, progress in nanotechnology provided new tools to treat cancer more effectively. Advances in biomaterials tailored for drug delivery have the potential to overcome the limited selectivity and side effects frequently associated with traditional therapeutic agents. While autophagy is pivotal in determining cell fate and adaptation to different challenges, and despite the fact that it is frequently dysregulated in cancer, antitumor therapeutic strategies leveraging on or targeting this process are scarce. This is due to many reasons, including the very contextual effects of autophagy in cancer, low bioavailability and non-targeted delivery of existing autophagy modulatory compounds. Conjugating the versatile characteristics of nanoparticles with autophagy modulators may render these drugs safer and more effective for cancer treatment. Here, we review current standing questions on the biology of autophagy in tumor progression, and precursory studies and the state-of-the-art in harnessing nanomaterials science to enhance the specificity and therapeutic potential of autophagy modulators.

Keywords: Autophagy; Biomaterials; Cancer; Clinical trials; Nanomedicine.

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Conflict of interest statement

All authors declared no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic view of the main phases and molecules implicated in the autolysosome formation during the autophagic process
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Nanomedicine approaches in drug delivery modulating autophagy in cancer
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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